EF0 tornado, Lakewood to Ft George Is, Florida, April 15, 2020

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

EF0

Date

April 15, 2020

Touchdown

7:17 AM EDT (11:17 UTC)

Lifted

7:47 AM EDT (11:47 UTC)

On the ground

30 minutes

Path length

14.9 miles (23.9 km)

Path width

125 yards (114 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Duval County

Touchdown point

30.442, -81.672

Lift-off point

30.520, -81.440

Record number

2004150517-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A cold front moved slowly across SE GA and the Suwannee Valley during the ealry morning hours. Mid and upper level shortwave energy from the Gulf of Mexico coincided aloft near the front which produced strong to severe storms. The storm prediction center had a Marginal risk of Severe thunderstorms over the region and 40-50 knots of 0-6 Km Bulk Shear along with 500-1000 J/KG of MLCAPE.

An EF0 tornado touched down in the Biscayne Downs Subdivision near the Broward River, just west of I-95. The tornado knocked down trees along Sarasota Lane and Secretariat Drive. One tree was snapped an fell on a home along Sarasota Lane. It destroyed a sunroom along Riva Ridge Drive. The tornado likely lifted before it crossed the Broward River with sporadic wind damage occurring through Oceanway before touching back down along Grover Road, where significant tree damage occurred. Tree damage occurred along Boney Road and Starratt Road near Edwards Creek including a snapped tree that fell on a truck with other uprooted trees in the area. Local broadcast media relayed a video of the tornado as it bypassed Black Hammock Island near the A1A and Nassau Sound bridge next to Amelia Island State Park. Tornado damage was not continuous along the path. The path width was estimated.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:47 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 14 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:15 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2020 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.